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‘Living’ with dowry: oral testimonies of gender oppression*

‘Living’ with dowry: oral testimonies of gender oppression*

Biswamoy Pati

Publisher:

Manchester University Press

DOI:10.7228/manchester/9780719086588.003.0009

This chapter focuses on the problem of dowry to explore its present-day ramifications. It highlights a problem that is in sharp contrast to the ‘image’ of Orissan society being relatively free from violence and major conflicts, with communal riots (as exemplified in the case of Kandhamal) being explained as aberrations, that have been precipitated by fascist, right-wing politics. Tracing the problem of gender devaluation that had pre-colonial roots, it questions positions that see it as a problem related to increased agricultural productivity or prosperity. As delineated, the problems related to under-development and scarcity need to be borne in mind while discussing the phenomenon of dowry. As this chapter argues, while economic explanations can explain some aspects of the problem, they can be hopelessly inadequate in explaining the problem of dowry.

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PRINTED FROM MANCHESTER SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.manchester.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Manchester University Press, 2018. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MSO for personal use (for details see www.manchester.universitypressscholarship.com/page/privacy-policy).date: 21 January 2019